Scanlon on Substantive Responsibility*

WHAT role do a person’s opportunities to choose play in the justification of social arrangements? We need to answer this question in order to arrive at a theory of substantive responsibility, which tells us the way in which a person’s claims on others, others’ claims on her, and the quality of her situation should depend on the opportunities she has and the choices she makes. To get a handle on this question, consider the following case, which is adapted from an example of Thomas Scanlon’s. Imagine that we are public officials responsible for the removal and transport to a remote, safe location, of some recently discovered, naturally occurring hazardous material from a town. Though the excavation site will be fenced off, and the excavation and transport